How a ‘little girl with a huge dream' made her way to Formula 1's Canadian Grand Prix

Hamilton Spectator

14 hours ago

Most 16-year-olds are working on finding themselves. Some are learning to drive, many are nervously courting crushes and others are finding hobbies to distract themselves from the mundanity of school and adolescence.
Mathilda Paatz has been focusing her attention on racing 240 kilometres an hour, thousands of miles from home, in a metronomically engineered car.
She will race at the
Canadian Grand Prix
this weekend as the wild-card driver in the
F1 Academy
, a female-only racing championship designed to feed promising young drivers into F2 and F3, the lower tiers of the international racing hierarchy.
MONTREAL (AP) — Lance Stroll has been cleared to race at the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend
It's an unconventional track for a 16-year-old, but one that is firmly in Paatz's blood. A native of Cologne, Germany, she got into racing through her father, Michael, who drove primarily in endurance championships in Europe. As if she needed any more inspiration to get involved, her father's racing team bears her name: Mathilda Racing.
'It's always been a passion and I was always behind the wheel,' she told the Star. 'When I first got into a kart, I just felt like this is my spot, I want to do more, and so I kept going.'
The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in
Montreal
is, in Paatz's words, a technical track that will be difficult to drive, especially for younger drivers.
At just over four kilometres in length, it takes most fewer than two minutes per lap. Drivers zoom down its long straights and around the small lake in the centre of Île Notre-Dame, a man-made island in the Saint Lawrence River.
It has been a part of the Formula One calendar since its opening in 1978 and has hosted the likes of
Lewis Hamilton
,
Max Verstappen
and Michael Schumacher.
MONTREAL - Max Verstappen knows he's at risk of a suspension.
'It's a street circuit, so the walls are quite close. You have to be very precise with the driving,' Paatz said, speaking hours after her pre-race walk-through. 'Everything happens really fast. It's quite a difficult track in my opinion, but I'm excited.'
Paatz will be debuting a Gatorade-branded car and race suit to coincide with the drink company's announcement of a partnership with the F1 Academy that runs until 2030.
The partnership, which is part of the brand's 'Fuel Tomorrow' initiative, is framed as a 'groundbreaking collaboration' intended to break down barriers in motorsport.
The partnership allows Gatorade to 'bring our decades of sports science expertise directly to the next generation of elite drivers,' Umi Patel, Pepsico's vice president of marketing innovation and hydration brands Umi Patel said in a statement.
'By supporting young women at the start of their motorsport journey, we not just setting them up for success at such a pivotal part of their career, we are encouraging them to see what is in them and fuel their drive and ambition for success.'
Paatz says that the course in Montreal is a technical and difficult one due to its tight, street-oriented structure.
'It's a great support driving here in F1 Academy,' Paatz said. 'Their support is very great and it's a great brand to work with. I'm very honoured.'
Paatz won't be the youngest competitor in the race; she'll be racing against two other 16-year-olds, Australia's Joanne Ciconte and Denmark's Alba Larsen, who were born later than her.
'We've known each other for quite some time, when we made the first steps into single-seaters, so it's very nice to see them back on track,' she said.
Her message to young women and girls interested in racing is simple: There are ample resources popping up to develop and nurture female drivers, and all it takes is a good attitude and a persistent work ethic.
After all, she was once just a dreamer.
'When you look at me, I've also been just a little girl with a huge dream,' Paatz said. 'I want to make an idol for other girls by trying my best.'